CLASS SITE: The Social Standoff

Describe three important relationships and what they revealed about illusion

Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby:

The relationship at the very heart of The Great Gatsby novel is Gatsby and Daisy long-lost connection, or more specifically, Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy. A love that drives the novel’s plot and Gatsby’s adult life. Five years before the start of the novel, Jay Gatsby (who had learned from Dan Cody how to act like one of the wealthy) was stationed in Louisville before going to fight in World War 1. In Louisville, he met Daisy Fay, a beautiful young heiress, who took him for someone of her social class. Gatsby maintained the lie, which allowed their relationship to progress. Gatsby fell in love with Daisy and soon enough they kissed: “Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” From this point onwards: “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.” But this summer love didn’t las for long since Gatsby had to leave for the war and by the time he returned to the US in 1919, Daisy had married Tom Buchanan.Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship represents illusion because Gatsby has tried to relive the past and be in love with Daisy again. Where as it can’t be reality anymore because Gatsby isn’t wealthy, he has this ‘American Dream’ that can’t be reached. Their relationship is also an illusion because Daisy is married to Tom, and they have a baby girl together: Pammy. This relationship is fake because Daisy’s emotions are no longer real. She says things such as she loves Gatsby because she feels pressured to. For Gatsby and Daisy to runaway together like they want to, Gatsby want Daisy to admit that the past five years never happened and that she never loved Tom. Daisy doesn’t tell Gatsby what he wants to hear because she can’t. Because she did love Tom and one stage, and Gatsby too. Their relationship reveals illusion because Gatsby’s persona is fake, it is false. His whole life is made up of lies and materialistic things to make him look wealthy when really he is the same boy he used to be when he was with his family. He can’t relive the past or change it. Which is what he is trying to do.

Myrtle and George Wilson:

Myrtle Wilson is very materialistic. She is unsatisfied with her husband’s small repair shop and doesn’t like her life as the wife of a mechanic.She is desperate to improve her life so when she gets the opportunity to climb up the social ladder through Tom, she takes the opportunity. George Wilson on the other hand is a more meek man. He seems to be content with his life…that is until he discovers that his wife is cheating on him. Myrtle and George seem to have a loveless marriage, this is because Myrtle thinks that she is too good for George and isn’t happy with his social class, therefore she doesn’t love him. An earthy, vital, and voluptuous woman, Myrtle is desperate to improve her life. She has had a long-term affair with Tom Buchanan, and is very jealous of his wife, Daisy. George is coated by the dust of despair and thus seems mired in the hopelessness and depression of that empty place, while Myrtle is alluring and full of liveliness. Her first action is to order her husband to get chairs, and the second is to move away from him, closer to Tom.When we first get introduced to George and Myrtle their relationship seems fractured, with vastly different personalities and motivations. We get the sense right away that their marriage is in trouble, and conflict between the two is about to happen. One night the couple have a fight and as a yellow car is approaching their home Myrtle runs out on the road shouting for help thinking that it is Tom. In a short span of time Myrtle gets hit and is instantly killed. Nick: “Was Daisy driving?” Gatsby: ‘“Yes, but of course I’ll say I was.” Myrtle ran in front of Gatsby’s car, believing that Tom was driving, and was killed by Daisy, Tom’s wife. I find this extremely ironic. After her death, the size of his grief drives Wilson to murder Jay Gatsby before committing suicide himself.

Tom and Daisy Buchanan:

Throughout the novel, it is clear that Tom and Daisy have an unstable relationship.Both Tom and Daisy come from wealthy backgrounds and the upper level of society. Tom likes the idea of a beautiful and social wife; whilst Daisy enjoys having a wealthy and well-connected husband.Daisy is a hospitable character who is forever in love with having a rich and lavish lifestyle.Though big, strong, and arrogant, Tom still shows that he cares a bit for Daisy.Their relationship is toxic and unhealthy, yet they seem to have no intention of working to make it better. “Why they came east I don’t know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here…wherever people played polo and were rich together.” Nick introduces Tom and Daisy as restless, rich, and as a singular unit. Despite all the revelations about the affairs and other events throughout the novel. Our first and last descriptions of Tom and Daisy describes them as a close, if bored, couple. Tom and Daisy create this illusion of loving other people and not loving each other. Whereas they are actually really good for each other. This is because Daisy doesn’t know how to love someone , she only knows how to love money and social status. Daisy’s whole life is based on materialism and wealth. By the end of the novel, after Daisy’s murder of Myrtle as well as Gatsby’s death, she and Tom are firmly back together, “conspiring” and “careless” once again, despite the deaths of their lovers.As Nick notes, they “weren’t happy…and yet they weren’t unhappy either.” Their marriage is important to both, since it reassures their status as old money aristocracy and brings stability to their lives.”They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” This quote that is told by Nick, sums up Tom and Daisy’s relationship perfectly.